Wonderful grace notes and atmosphere. The pulse was generally very good, although it seemed there were two places in the first half of the piece where the pulse broke a little (on 'tuplets of some kind in the RH, when the number of notes per beat was increasing). Small matter in a piece of this length, though.

BTW: I listen through speakers, not headphones, and the piano's sound was rich, with plenty of sonority.

One of Liszt's best Schubert transcriptions, and your playing is very nice. I have reservations about the opening bars before the melody enters. I know they are marked staccato in the rh, but I would interpret that as an indication of touch, rather than playing them in the completely detached way you choose. Still, Horowitz played it that way, and who am I to query?

Thank you for your comments everybody and for putting it up on the site, Monica.

andrew wrote:

One of Liszt's best Schubert transcriptions, and your playing is very nice. I have reservations about the opening bars before the melody enters. I know they are marked staccato in the rh, but I would interpret that as an indication of touch, rather than playing them in the completely detached way you choose. Still, Horowitz played it that way, and who am I to query?

I think the staccato imitates the sound of a finger-picked guitar, which is what Schubert may have had in mind. If I get this idea across, is a different question, though

I have now listened to some random recordings of both the original Schubert lied and the Liszt arrangement and it seems that quite a few pianists avoid the staccato. However, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's pianist doesn't and I find this interpretation quite convincing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn1jSZFaJyw.

The Fischer-Dieskau video made me aware of a subtle difference between the Liszt and Schubert versions. Schubert seems to have made no pedal indications; Liszt I believe tells you to pedal with each note. I presume that's to provide a little "body" of sustain to each note whilst maintaining a staccato touch. I suppose this is one of these things every pianist sees differently. Incidentally, I listened to Rachmaninov and for once I'll say something negative about his playing! His opening few bars seem to be all over the place. After that you only need a few moments to realise it's a great pianist playing.

Liszt I believe tells you to pedal with each note. I presume that's to provide a little "body" of sustain to each note whilst maintaining a staccato touch.

In fact, Liszt's pedal instruction is "Pedale à chaque Mesure", so you are quite right that the staccato seems to be a question of touch rather than playing the notes in a completely detached way. It's been more than two years since I last played this transcription but I seem to remember that I initially changed the pedal each bar but I found that it sounded too "massive" for my taste so my teacher at that time suggested playing the opening bars without pedal. Why I still used pedal on the last note of each bar, I don't know...

On the other hand, I don't think that composer's pedal markings are always that terribly dogmatic. A mid-nineteenth century Erard grand piano had much less sustain and sound than a modern concert grand. Sometimes a composer's pedal markings may need to be "translated" for the instruments we have and that could also be the case here. I don't know. Once more a time machine would be handy

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